


Salts

by Tigerine (sealink)



Category: DRAMAtical Murder
Genre: Bad Ending, Death, Decapitation, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-26
Updated: 2014-02-26
Packaged: 2018-01-13 21:30:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1241422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sealink/pseuds/Tigerine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Humans only remain conscious for about 10-15 seconds after their heads are severed. If the shock of decapitation doesn’t cause them to pass out, they can think, feel and react as normal, although they cannot speak. After about 15 seconds, the person will lose consciousness due to blood loss.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Salts

**Author's Note:**

> This is entirely due to ruffruff-ren's comment on a post about Mink's decapitation of Aoba being the humane thing to do once Scrap failed. Blame them. 
> 
> My tumblr: tigerine.tumblr.com  
> tracked tag: #tigerine

The other Aoba shrinks away into nothingness, leaving behind a void, a hole that Aoba bubbles up to fill, the greasy smears of laughter and taunting still ringing around the inside of his skull.

There are lights. They float in his vision like motes of dust, limned by firelight.

One second.

His vision sways. There is a dull sensation of pain in his head—his hair. He is swinging and then, the grating, sharp agony of fingers under his chin, combing through the shreds of his neck.

Two seconds.

Aoba looks at him tenderly as his eyes begin to unfocus. His forehead, his dreadlocks, those too-intense blue-green eyes leveled on him. They are sad. Chapped lips move and Aoba reads them, feels the heat of Mink’s breath like an impulsion on his skin, a physical force that pushes at his cheek. He can say nothing.

Three seconds.

The plea is sharp in his mind, as sharp as the knife through his trachea. Please be okay. Please let me have been fast enough to save you. Please don’t fall to him. Please don’t leave me alone here with a demon, even though it’s what I deserve.

Four seconds.

Please let Granny be safe. Please let her know that I am not in pain any more. Please let someone take care of Ren. Please tell my parents where I am buried. Please let them visit me there once. Please don’t leave me alone here.

Everyone enters and leaves this world the same way: alone.

He came into this world, screaming and alone, and people took him from the warm, wet womb and introduced him to life. They introduced him to oxygen, which poisons him slowly with oxidative stress. They introduced him to light, which creates dimers in his DNA. They introduced him to chemical concentration gradients, which control the movement of ions like salts in and out of his cells.

Five seconds.

Aoba blinks slowly. Are those tears in his eyes? Are they in Mink’s? Everything is blending together into a muddy sort of painting.

They introduced him to the smells of food and people, to the scent of herbs and smoke, to the laughter of the clan and the sorrow of broken hearts. They brought him here among the collected knowledge of generations and made him one of us. They gave him a name, a truename, like mountains and forests and it sounds in his ears like the forgotten shriek of a mountain lion.

Mink. Mink’s _name_.

Six seconds.

He came into this world, white and still. Connected to… someone. There was someone there, wasn’t there? He reached out and found nothing, and then there is a smell of salt and the warmth of sand and a smile. They introduced him to family, to wholeness. They brought him here to the warmth of the hearth and family. They gave him their name, a truename, like a single tree and it sounds like the wind against the quaking of branches.

Mink. His _name_.

Seven seconds.

The world is lighter, turning white at the edges. He is so grateful for the light that is beginning to wash out Mink’s features and wipe away the sadness on his face. Don’t be sad, he thinks. No more. No more sadness, no more death.

Eight seconds.

The rim around his vision constricts, like a lens closing. Mink’s lips move again and he knows what he is saying

すみません。

No, it’s not that.

I’m sorry.

No, it’s not like that either, it’s another set of words entirely that Aoba doesn’t know, but their meaning is the same.

He wants to lift his hand and touch Mink’s face, wipe away that dampness at the corner of his eye, but he can’t.

Nine seconds.

Black appears at the edge of the white, dark spots blooming like flowers, closing in on the light, rushing forward like a tidal bore.

Ten seconds.

Please let me say his name. Just once. He’s not alone. I’m here. I’m here. I’m here.

His lips press together in the shape of the beginning of his name. The blackness overtakes the light, consuming it. All that is left are those blue-green eyes, little more than a smear of color in his vision.

His lips fall apart, his teeth glinting behind them. The concentration gradient drains away.

Eleven seconds.

Twelve seconds.

A sensation, the vaguest feeling of electricity, the heat of lips meeting his like the stab of needles in his flesh, but through a thick quilt. Nothing hurts any more. Nothing hurts.

Nothing.

Thirteen seconds.

Fourteen seconds.

Fifteen seconds.


End file.
